Hi I realise movies and videogames with any Martial Arts or related things can be spiced up probably for entertainment reasons but I noticed the way Guy from Final Fight moved and it looked like a technique that was taught to me by a Hop Gar Sifu although I wasn't 100% that this technique was from that system or not.

Anyway I was going to link a video to illustrate my post but all the ones I've seen are basically too fast to show exactly what I'm going to say to describe the technique. The move with Guy from Final Fight is his backfist type hit on it's own or the first move when you hit someone as part of his combination. However it isn't the backfist that caught my eye the most - it was his footwork while he does it.

Basically the footwork involves being in a higher type cat stance with your leading foot being on its toes with the heel off the floor. This is his type of ready position. I think when he hits the backfist the front foot + heel hits the floor. In this position the front foot is kind of horizontal so the body is more side on than fowards as it was in the ready position. The back foot is now in the position that the one at the front was originally - foot being on its toes with the heel off the floor. So in effect the feet have swapped positions. They have also shifted weight from one foot to the other and swapped the weight if you see what I mean. After the hit the feet swap back again to how they were in the ready position. This could be difficult to understand if you've never actually practiced this technique and seeing Guy do the similar technique is sometimes hard to see as it's normally done too fast and too many times on the videogame to see it properly. However if you do the moves with guy one at a time and more slowly rather than pressing the hit button quickly you can see it better.

I heard in MA that shifting weight isn't always how its done and across many arts it seems. However I could be wrong. The way the body moves above does however give the hitter more reach as the hitting arm's shoulder is rotated more forwards in a way with the body moving from a forward facing position to a more side on one.

I realise some of this may sound confusing but many things are more difficult to explain via written word.

I guess some MA stuff in films / videogames is sometimes spiced up for entertainment but you do see some more truthful elements as it were from time to time. Guess it's hard to make anything 100% bs!

Also I realise many arts can be very different but sometimes you see similar principles cropping up and sometimes to do with how the body moves / mechanics? This can happen but I think different arts can express the same / similar principle differently or according to the particular system.